My boyfriend of one year, Roland, enjoyed teasing me about certain aspects of my personality, my particular brand of daffiness. He had a wry sense of humor and made fun of everybody, though not necessarily for spite. Just about everyone came under his side-swiping disapprobation but as I said, it was never meant to inflict harm. He was a New Yorker who liked a wicked jab, a well-turned anecdote or a snappy retort.
I never minded his teasing but often thought his portrayals were not always as accurately rendered as he thought they were. There were occasions when he didn’t quite nail it, where he was a tad superficial, off-base by a stitch. I only occasionally said anything that would contradict him, ruin the good time or make him look foolish or myself like a stickler. I enjoyed the ribbing: my last boyfriend lacked any sort of humorous attention directed my way and that seemed untoward. He thought I was a serious type because of my profession as a writer even though at the time I wrote record and concert reviews - not in the least serious - more accurately described as “breezy with a touch a satiric glee by my editor.”
Roland’s best friend, Ray, a born-bachelor was even more snarky. Co-workers, family members, waitresses and even the unknowns who just happened to frequent the same diner or coffeehouse were subject to mockery and the wicked riposte. Certain women were to be avoided - “cross the street if you see them coming.”
For guys, they really loved gossip and rumor. I mention this because it is said women have a larger propensity for this but these two reminded me of old women in the weekly sewing circle. Yakking away, judging all in accordance with their own principles. All in good fun, naturally. I listened, somewhat fascinated but unable to rise to the required derision. I sometimes found myself meekly defending the poor unfortunate caught in their crossfire.
No one received their disdain more than other musicians. Ray was a guitarist and Roland a drummer and they were both purists. At their favorite diner over numerous cups of coffee they analyzed and riffed on all the musicians of their acquaintance and then went on to famous musicians or those with a local following. No one after the year 1960 was respected. All had sold out or did not have anything to sell in the first place. Jazz, blues and soul after that year - and I don’t know how that year was established but I could figure the equation if I thought about it long enough - was a corrupted version. Rock and roll had no reason to be, according to Ray, after Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry. Everyone who followed was an amateur, a poseur, a noisemaker. The only thing that should be performed were precise renditions of the standards or if of your own pen, a fixed homage to the standards, which they both adhered to in their own musical offerings. Nothing, absolutely nothing that was not blues-based existed for them.
They also had words of vilification for bugs like music critics and had a special contempt reserved for record store clerks who dared to proffer an opinion on music. People who were not musicians, they said, should not pretend to know anything, they couldn’t possibly. They especially disliked, if upon entering a record store, a “big hit” happened to be “now playing.” They said nothing, but they took notice of who was at the counter and were able to judge that clerk from then on. That I happened to have been both a critic and a record store clerk only occasionally passed through their mind while making snide comments in my presence. Roland would say to me, We don’t mean you, doll. We know you are hip to what’s cool even if you like a lot of other shit, I mean... I knew many musicians and those of a certain age all have a penchant to challenge newer recording artists. Younger musicians seem to be more generous and well-rounded but I’m making generalizations that would not stand up to much scrutiny. Forgive me.
The fact is, none of this has anything to do with the story I wish to tell. Should I delete it all then? Possibly. But no, it is my way of giving background information on two of the characters in my little tale. It is “little,” have no fear, you will not be reading on and on about the three of us but will soon be introduced to another character that may be more compelling if musicians and their trifling inclinations aren’t that interesting to you.
One morning while I was having breakfast with the two musicians, Roland started teasing me about my propensity of late to stay inside all day, sometimes not even getting dressed. I’d been unemployed for a few months with a newspaper shakedown; everyone who could be laid off was laid off and that went double for those in the arts and entertainment section.
Roland had a job in a bakery that started at 5:30 a.m., allowing him to leave work early enough for band rehearsals at 4:30 p.m. He was busy and I was not. I was enjoying my time at home, writing my first novel in the morning after he left. By 9 a.m. I had written seven to ten pages and my day’s work was finished. Within the three months of unemployment, I had it written and was ready to begin hounding publishers and agents. With the novel finished, I started writing poetry but kept it hidden. Later in the year I would go to open readings and even acquire a following but that too, is another story.
One tempestuous April dawn Roland kissed me goodbye as he was leaving for work. I, as usual, was sitting in my old rocking chair ready to get out my notebook and pencil. He patted me on the head saying, “I know you’ll be here in this exact spot when I come home, probably still in your bathrobe, ha, ha.”
“You don’t know that for sure,” I taunted.
“Oh, I know you like a book,” he laughed. “After rehearsal, I’ll come home and find you still sitting in your chair just like I left you.”
“Maybe, but you never know about me. I can be unpredictable.”
“I know all about you. I’ll see you tonight, about 5 or 5:30. Have a relaxing day.” He grinned and walked out the door at 5:25 a.m., running late. This was an example of his teasing and was not at all meant to be facetious. He was happy to have an interesting girlfriend, any girlfriend, really, and was all kindness and good-humor.
I got out my notebook and pencil and spent a couple of hours writing until the phone rang at around 7:45 a.m. I knew who was calling; a date had been made several days previous.
“Bon jour,” I said into the phone.
“Bon jour, Madame. It’s good to hear your voice this morning.”
“Are you at the hotel already?”
“Yes. Just arrived.”
“Shall I come over now?”
“Yes, of course. I’m anxious to see you.”
“Well in that case, I won’t make you anxious -I’ll be there within the hour.”
My French lover, the term possibly a cliché though he would not appreciate that designation, had been in Washington D.C. for the past week and would now have one day in New York before flying out tonight. Whenever he came to the states we met. This arrangement had been going for more than seven years; we were lovers, friends and I would serve as his secretary/translator if needed. Though I now had a live-in boyfriend, I saw no reason to alter the routine that had its precedent established well before I met Roland and would continue long after Roland, having no formal commitment to my knowledge.
I threw on my one good dress, slapped on some makeup, pinned up my hair and arrived at Claude’s hotel by 8:40 a.m. We went straight to bed. I thought he might like to loll around for the morning but no, he wanted to visit the Frick Collection on 70th and Fifth so we set out from his mid-town hotel, stopping for breakfast in an obscure diner on 55th. He always looked forward to the hearty American breakfast that he said he never ate anywhere else; eggs-over-easy, bacon, potatoes, toast, orange juice and coffee. He said I gave him an appetite but I knew he ordered it from room service whenever he was in this country. I liked it too and he always commented on the fact that no French woman would dream of eating like this in the morning but that he found it appealing.
We made our way through Frick’s exquisitely elegant collection, a collection any discerning Frenchman of taste and refinement could not help but appreciate. He was so pleased with the high-end aesthetic experience after too many mundane D.C. meetings, he wanted to continue our art expedition so we debated whether to head north to the Metropolitan Museum of Art or try something different and have a look at the biennial exhibit at The Whitney Museum of American Art. We chose the Whitney because it was closer and would not require the mental heft of the Met. Our time was not unlimited. We headed up to 75th and Madison.
It was 1:55 p.m. when we left the museum and time for lunch. We stopped at a French bistro that had ventured to place a few tables outside where the sun intermittently shone between sprinkles verging on hail stones. Though chilly, we enjoyed lobster bisque, grilled ham and brie sandwiches and shared a slice of tarte tatin. He drank a Calvados with an espresso and I had a cappuccino.
It was now 2:50 p.m. and we headed south, then cut over to Lexington because he wanted to do some shopping at Bloomingdale's. He bought his wife a scarf and a certain moisturizer she hadn’t been able to find in Paris. He bought his son a small intricate board game. He bought his secretary a scarf of lesser value than the one he bought for his wife but in some ways, prettier. He bought me a small bottle of a French perfume he said smelled like cinnamon and honey, adding, “like you, sweet and spicy.” A romantic.
At 3:15 p.m. we stopped in an Old-World tobacco shop where he purchased a special pipe tobacco for his boss and a sampling of small cigars for himself. We decided to drop in the bar across the street for a quick drink before heading back to the hotel because he’d read something about it. As it happened, author Kurt Vonnegut was seated next to us at the bar. He was voluble and started a discussion with Claude on, of all things, eating snails in France versus America. I don’t remember how this topic came up or the outcome. We reluctantly left the bar and the author at 3:45 p.m.
Claude said he wanted to find a bookstore and buy a copy of one of his books to read on the plane. He wanted me to choose what I thought was his best work. He would read it and be better able to discuss this author with his colleagues in Paris who may or may not know who he was but if I said he was important, that was enough for him - he wanted to read him immediately. In another coincidence, (we have experienced many together) while we were making our way over to Rizzoli’s, in somewhat of a rush, I noted a street person hawking his rummage-sale goods on a battered blanket. On that blanket were copies, in reasonable condition, of not only Slaughterhouse-Five, but Cat’s Cradle. What are the chances of that happening? Claude negotiated the two books for three dollars and felt satisfied enough to give the guy an extra two dollars at my urging. It's wise to give thanks to the universe when you receive extra time, money or love.
In the taxi, I filled Claude in on the sixties, counterculture ideals and radical politics in America, none of which he knew about in any depth being a scientist but eager to learn everything about the character we had just met, having heard his discourse on snails as well as his views on the current president’s “bought-and-sold policies.” Claude had just the day before attended a symposium and was photographed with the president but did not say this to the author, not wanting to play a petty game of one-ups-manship with a slightly drunk famous author in his own country. Both men were leftists, though we did not have time to get into all that. We later learned Vonnegut’s brother was a scientist and he and Claude had both been in attendance at a conference in Brussels on air space. This he learned later from a colleague. Claude eventually read all of the author’s titles, albeit in his own language. "An American treasure," he said.
It was 4:02 p.m. when we arrived back at the hotel and went straight to bed for a half hour and then had a glass of wine in the hotel bar not wanting the day to end. Claude had to make some calls and attend a cocktail party to tie up loose ends before heading to the airport.
At 4:55 he put me in a taxi saying he would call me as soon as he arrived back at his office. “I had a wonderful day,” he said. “I will never forget the Frick Collection. Or you, Madame. I will never forget you, my cherie Sally. And I will have another story to tell, of meeting Kurt Vonnegut in the bar. The last time I was here we met Bill Murray, do you remember? I knew who he was: Ghostbusters. I tell my wife I hang out with movie stars whenever I’m in New York and now my son wants to come with me on the next trip. I have too much fun with you so I will have to disappoint him.”
Alone in the taxi I thought of how surprised Roland would be to find me out.
I landed home at 5:16 p.m., a minor miracle given the traffic at that hour. Roland was not yet home so I slid out of my dress, washed off the makeup, brushed my teeth, put on my pajamas and returned to my old rocking chair with my magazines and notebooks in the side pocket. There I sat, dreamily, recounting the day’s events when Roland, with Ray in tow, arrived at 5:37 p.m.
“Ha, ha, ha, didn’t I tell you, Ray? Didn’t I say she would be in the exact spot I left her in this morning, still in her pajamas?”
He kissed me on the cheek and said, “I know you like a book. I’m going to make us all dinner. You’ve had an exhausting day, stay right where you are.” He cackled and headed toward our small kitchenette. “Isn’t she something Ray? Have you ever known anyone who can just sit in a chair all day, rocking and thinking? Didn’t I say this morning, Sal, I would find you in the same spot?”
“Yes, my dear, you certainly have my number,” I said. “I can’t fool you that’s for sure.”
He tugged at my ruffled tresses, “She doesn’t even comb her hair these days. I think she’s becoming a hermit or something.”
Ray grinned and said, “Or a reclooose, like Greta Garbo.”
“I’m just busy rocking and thinking,” I said.
“My gal, Sal. Always dreaming of people and places. Who wants spaghetti tonight?”
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